Outdoor Wood Burners

[djg james]

I've seen you guys reference your OWBs and was wondering what type do you have. I'm guessing they are a boiler/recirculating water type, but maybe some are forced air.

I put a wood burning furnace in my garage years after I built the house. I wish I had considered one when I built the house. Things would have been different.

Anyway, mine takes cold air from the garage, heats it and then the blowers force the air up a 14"? pipe (insulated) to my attic. There the pipe makes a 90 and runs laterally to overhead of my living room. An auxiliary fan then blows the hot air into the living room (after making another 90). Not the most efficient and the blowes run almost constantly.

So I was wondering if yours uses outside air and if yours is a forced air also.

I'm considering moving the furnace outside and building a shed around it. Then the hot air pipe would run (shorter) under my deck into my basement (through a hole in the basement wall).
This way, I'd heat my basement better. Would the heat then rise sufficiently enough to heat the upstairs?

Just kicking around an idea on how to better use my unit.

 

[H-Ranch]

Generally OWB does refer to a hydronic (circulating water) heating system. Most are not a boiler, but rather a burner - water temp is below boiling and is not pressurized.

There may be some commercial outdoor wood furnaces. There are a couple AS members that have done what you're thinking also. My neighbor used one that way. Pushed it right near the outside wall and had a 12" duct blowing air into the house. He has a tri-level and did most of the heating with it. Since propane has been cheap he stopped using it.

A search probably can find the thread here that one member started on his a few years ago. Good luck.

 

[dave_dj1]

I have an Enterprise Fawcette hot air wood furnace that is sitting outside of my garage, there are two 10" ducts, a hot air and a return, the blower sits at the rear bottom of the unit. I framed around it with steel studs and insulated it then covered in metal roofing scraps. Works great! I had the exact same thing at my house but sold it and bought an Heatmor outside water stove, sits fifty something feet from the house, gets fed twice a day and provides nice even heat. The problem with the hot air wood furnace was the lack of controlling it so the house would get really warm.
If you search around here you should be able to find pics of mine or the build of it. Search google too. Check with your insurance carrier, they probably won't like it as it will change the UL rating of the unit.

 

[djg james]

Mine has a thermostat which controls the on/off of the blowers. My concern is if I would get enough radiant heat upstairs.

 

[NSMaple1]

Pulling in cold unheated air and pushing heated air through an unheated space (attic) are both not good things to do and will kill efficiency big time. And you will get no radiant heat off the furnace anywhere in your house either. That's all I want to type right now on this silly phone keyboard.

 

[dave_dj1]

Mine has a thermostat which controls the on/off of the blowers. My concern is if I would get enough radiant heat upstairs.

You will get heat upstairs via heat rises but, you need a cold air return for the unit to really be efficient. On my set up the cold air and hot air ducts were only about 2' apart and it worked great. My house is a ranch with walk out basement and that is where I had it installed, it heated the basement and the upstairs too. I also had it set up on a t-stat to control the fan although it rarely shut off because of the way hot air furnaces work, the blower runs when the unit gets hot to keep it from over heating.

 

[U&A]

@AFMoulton


Sent while firmly grasping my redline lubed RAM [emoji231]